Support clean air for all citizens

Wood smoke has been proven to be worse than second hand cigarette smoke and the PM 2.5 particular matter is so small that it cannot escape the body and stays in the lungs. Most people do not understand how harmful wood smoke is and that is why we need wood smoke bans and By Laws in place.

We have laws in place that one cannot smoke near doors or air intakes yet a neighbor can smoke you out all winter long for 5-6 months of the year. The smoke seeps into neighboring homes and yards as smoke has no boundaries.

Breathing is not a choice but wood stoves are. New wood stoves are still polluting the air and are not an answer to the problem. In light of the recent 2017 provincial state of emergency that B.C. had all summer in which people were breathing in very high levels of smoke we now enter the cool fall season in which wood stoves are being lit. If woods stoves are allowed this means almost 12 months of wood smoke for many people in B.C. This is not only effecting and seriously jeopardizing the young, the old, the disabled, the sick but any healthy person can get very ill and have devastating health effects from smoke. Heart attacks, strokes, asthma, sinus, COPD and cancer just to name a few.

Education and awareness is needed but until people are informed in light of the summer we just had please ban or very strictly reduce wood smoke this winter. There are currently 2 monitors measuring air quality in Kamloops and yet we have many air sheds so when a neighbor is burning and some people are getting smoked out the environmental ministers monitor across town will not have the same readings as our own monitors where the smoke is. The ministry monitors are also very delayed by 12 to 24 hrs and by the time they announce when our air quality is bad we already know and yet people have continued to burn in a crucial time making the situation even worse. Cold air is already hard on lungs that we do not need smoke making breathing worse.

Please join in signing this petition so that everyone can breathe clean air. Smoke also over laps into school yards and play grounds when children have developing lungs and we do not allow smoking in parks or vehicles but chimney smoke which is far worse is allowed to pollute not only outside but it seeps through closed windows and doors.